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Sunday, July 25, 2010

Sharing a Slice of Life The Strawberry Friend

This was a much more difficult a meme prompt from Sharing a Slice of Life than I thought it would be. 'Friends' is a subject you would think would be easy. Through the years, I have had special friends that I thought I would be connected to for all my life. Distance would minimized the friendship, but the events of the time they were in my life remained as special times.
One such friendship started at the first house the Hero and I had. It was in an old section of Houston called "The Heights". My daughter Texasblu was the instigator of a the most fun friendship I had while we lived in Houston. Mrs Arlene Anderson was our next door neighbor. I did not know that at first; I was very shy and would never approach someone to meet them. I always had to be introduced. Texasblu on the other hand a smiling outgoing 18 month old was not shy. One day she discovered that just on the other side of the chain link fence was strawberries. She would slip her tiny hand through the fence and back would come a strawberry...One day I saw her grabbing the strawberry, we then had to approach the neighbor to tell her we were stealing strawberries. What a special lady, Miss Arlene as she liked having Texasblu call her, laughed and said she had been watching her "Strawberry Girl" and thought she was special. That was the first time we spoke, soon after we went shopping together. She is the one who introduced me to plants and unusual nurseries. She showed me where all the unusual hole in the wall stores were that you could buy cheaply. We had hours and hours of fun shopping trips with the Strawberry Girl in tow. I know that Strawberry Girl was her substitute for a granddaughter since she did not have a child. Miss Arlene was a once in life time experience that I am so glad I had. I wish I had pictures of her, maybe Texasblu has some in her scrapbook. I hope so. When we moved away, they did also, in the opposite direction. It was sad to lose that friendship, but the parting was with love.